


to come home; to be brave

by one_good_movie_kiss



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-07 02:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15208709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_good_movie_kiss/pseuds/one_good_movie_kiss
Summary: Nine walks Bellamy and Clarke take - and don't take - after the world starts over.





	1. x

**Author's Note:**

> _i will find any way to your wild heart_
> 
> I haven't published fic in three years, but this season has been calling to me: I love that Clarke and Bellamy are so much the same, but older. That's the thing I love best about their six years apart - how much it ages both of them. That kind of age is my favourite thing to slot into a romance, and I wanted to see if I could do it here. 
> 
> I've written most of these nine chapters, but I'm posting what I've got before the next episode airs and this seems even less plausible than it does already. Hoping to post a chapter a day, so fingers crossed that I keep at it!

The night after the treaty is drawn, thirty groups across all krus, peoples, walk out in all directions to the very outskirts of their shared green patch, armed with seeds and shovels that'd been stored away in the bunker, and they plant. 

Most of the groups go in fours or fives. Bellamy's group is really just a pair.

"It's a bit of a hike," Clarke warns, "but I wanted to show you." 

"Raven offered to let you take the rover," Bellamy points out. He doesn't mind - he hasn't stopped smiling since she sidled up to him at the meeting that evening, blatantly reserving him as partner. 

"You and I both know that was just a courtesy," Clarke says, glancing at him sidelong. Raven was pretty pumped to lock herself up with the rover and her bag of tools. "Besides, you can handle it."

She still graciously holds back on conversation once they start up the hill, instinctively knowing he's going to get winded. He's not unfit, but he is a little out of practice - especially against Clarke, whose pace doesn't falter even as they get further up. She reaches for his hand at the very end, the last steps up steeper than the rest, and tugs him in. 

"The green literally cuts off here," she says, pointing a little ways down the slope on the other side. 

He's seen the sand past the valley before, but it's intense to stand at a vantage point, to be able to see how the brown and green stretch out either way, to understand how thin the line is - or had been? - between bleakness and hope. He can't hold back a shiver. It feels epic. 

"I know," she says. 

He looks back at her, at Clarke, thinking of the things she's walked through, the life she's fought for. And here she is, with him; with her hand in his, a backpack of seeds and water on her back. Alive, and ready to keep spreading the life she almost lost. 

_She_ feels epic. 

"Hey," she says, and smiles. 

"Hi." He's suddenly, abruptly glad all over again that they're here together; that he no longer feels like he's in suspended animation, waiting for something to end. He squeezes her hand. 

Clarke squeezes back, and lets go. "I can find our way back in the dark," she says, pulling her backpack off, "but we should get started on this while the sun's still out."

He clears his throat and he begins to dig. 

The spot she's picked is perfect - it's not sand here, but soil, darker brown and damp. They work in silence, and he gets reacquainted with the texture of her breathing, the tread of her feet when she isn't in a hurry, the sound of her holding back a laugh at whatever she's thinking about. He keeps glancing at her, unselfconscious when their eyes occasionally meet, when she smiles like she's surprised to see him every time. 

The sun's almost set by the time they're done planting. He starts to place the wooden markers they brought, and she follows, watering each plot. 

"I used to radio you from up here," she says finally, her voice deliberately casual. 

It takes everything in him not to stop and turn around, and he only holds himself back because he knows she doesn't want him to look. 

"I kind of tried - " She breathes in through her nose, the way she does when she's frustrated. "I tried everything. Sometimes I got a little desperate. Different times, different places. Up here was the only time I heard feedback. Once."

There's so much in that, more than she's said in the months since he landed - the number of attempts, the number of days, the work she put in for no guarantee of a response. But she wouldn't want him to say any of that, so he'll think about it later. 

"If I knew," he says instead, "I would've talked to you."

"Every day?" "Every day," she asks and he answers, at the same time. 

He turns to her and they grin foolishly. 

"I would've lived in the comms room, Clarke," Bellamy says, still grinning when he adds, "I'm not kidding."

Clarke's shoulders loosen, and her eyes look a little bright as she looks away, then looks up. She sighs. "There's a lot I want to tell you, but I'm - it's hard to say everything again to you. Face to face."

"We have time," he says, nudging at her shoulder. Her hair is redder in this light, all of it the colour of the strip of her hair she'd dyed; and when she turns back to him, her eyes are warm and open like he's never seen. 

"I think so, too," she says, her smile shaky. "There's gonna be a lot I want to tell you. In the interest of full disclosure."

"I want to know it all," he declares. 

Her smile steadies, the wetness in her eyes receding a bit. 

"I think we're done here," Clarke says finally, looking as reluctant as he feels when she steps away to pack up. 

"Someone needs to check on this plot every few days, right?" Bellamy moves with her, tied to her by an invisible line. 

She nods. "Definitely more than the groups that got seedlings instead of these seeds."

"I call dibs on you," he says, and he slings an arm around her shoulder in a light hug. She jolts, then leans into him, and quickly - so quickly he isn't sure if he imagines it - presses a kiss against his heart. 

'You're it for me,' he wants to say, 'Meeting you changed my life, and you've been changing it ever since. I adore you. We've earned this.' But his heart jumps to his throat, the clichés turning to dust. 

When she's done packing, she takes his hand, and she finds their way back, in the dark.


	2. x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad the warmth of the first chapter came through to you guys! There is a mini dramatic arc in this fic, focused on Feelings, and I'm trying to lay the groundwork for it now.

"You look exhausted," Clarke greets him, standing at the gate they've been meeting at for the last month. "How's your back?" 

"Hello to you, too, Clarke," Bellamy says, his eyeroll good-natured. "How was your day?"

"Your back," she repeats, raising an eyebrow. 

"It's fine," he sighs. "I was looking for you yesterday, but I couldn't find you."

She shrugs. "There are other people who are medically trained," she points out, clearly taking his 'I was looking for you' to mean 'I needed you to help heal me' instead of 'I wanted to hang out with you and whine a little bit'. 

He wonders if she's doing it on purpose, or if he hasn't been clear enough.

"Your mother says walking will help." He gestures forward, and she unlatches the gate.

"I know what else my mother told you, because it's what I told you three nights ago." She tugs away the backpack he's carrying, and recites, "Lower back aches are common if you're older or unused to labour."

"Yeah, you were right, I'm an old man," Bellamy grumbles. 

"Just take it easy, Bellamy," Clarke chides, and she's frowning at him when he looks over. "We're getting the work done just fine, you don't need to do so much you're messing your back up." 

He half-smiles at her, the familiarity of the conversation knocking out any desire he'd had to squabble with her about it. "How was your day?" 

"We're officially done with the terraced houses up north," she says. "Mackenzie is really happy with how the sand bricks are holding." 

"Thank goodness for the convict architect, huh?" he says, glancing back into their burgeoning little township as they go up the first short slope on their route to the patch. 

The whole area is essentially a work in progress, but the structures are slowly taking shape - the council building, the labs, a brickyard, and several rows of houses. Modest, but already more permanent than anything he's lived in in his life. 

They discuss the work and their new teammates a little longer, joking about how fast it is to get work done when war and security aren't a concern, before silence descends - Bellamy can tell she's as exhausted as he is, even if she'd never say. 

"It's nice," she says eventually. "The permanence."

He smiles to himself at her choice of words, the same as his. 

"Ever since we landed here, I've thought of our life in terms of missions," she says thoughtfully. "Survive, deal with an enemy, deal with that enemy, stay alive, deal with a nuclear apocalypse, try not to die, find shelter, try not to want to die - " she cuts herself off. 

He thinks he succeeds at not letting his ache show on his face. "'Try not to want to die' was a big one for me, after we went back up," he says plainly. 

"Probably standard for all of us," she allows, glancing up at him. 

He wants to reach for her hand, but he scrubs his hand against his hair, kicks a rock. "What's your mission now?" 

"Make life," Clarke says, gesturing to their right, where he recently learned they'd get to a river if they walked further in. "Create. Live." 

His eyes on her, he hums in agreement, which morphs into a yell when he skids on a wet patch of grass. He grabs at her to keep upright, his hand landing on her backpack, and skids again as he tries to get his feet firmly beneath him again. 

Clarke laughs at the abrupt change in mood - laughing so much she's slow to reach out to help steady him. By the time she's placed a hand on his back, he's regained his balance, and he's laughing too.


	3. o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first not-walk. 
> 
> I hope I did the person I've added to the character tags justice - I love Raven, and think there's a roughness to her and Clarke's love for each other that's difficult to navigate.

It's not a one-off: he never finds Clarke if he looks for at lunch; he never sees her at all. 

As much as Clarke talks to him on these walks every few evenings, Bellamy still finds himself watching her from a distance the rest of the time, within the gate's boundaries. 

They're both part of the new town's council, but the discussions are fairly banal. They're not on the same work teams - she likes farming and she moonlights at medical, while he does construction and sometimes joins the team looking through whatever there's left to scavenge on the prison ship and the bunker - so their paths don't really ever cross. In their little town, she's almost always at his periphery; disappearing every time he tries to find her head-on. 

As a result, he's surprised beyond reason to see Clarke wave as she walks by his cabin with Raven one evening, and he nearly trips over himself jogging out the open door to catch up to them.

"Hey!" he calls out. 

Clarke and Raven both slow down, the blonde actually turning around to face him and walk backwards. Up close, he can see that her hands are full with cables and wires, and he's hit by the full force of her bright, pleased smile. 

"Hey, Blake," Raven says, and it's only when she stops that Clarke stops, too. "We found a couple music speakers on the ship." 

"And hard drives!" Clarke adds, still beaming, pointing at the duffel bag Raven's half-holding, half-carrying over a shoulder. "We have movies and music!" 

"We're gonna sort these out in our free time," Raven says. "Off-duty project."

The girls' eyes meet and Raven smiles back at her, just as pleased, just as adoring, before she nods up ahead of them. "Shall we?"

"Are you joining us for dinner tonight?" Bellamy asks. 

"Bellamy." Raven hits him on the shoulder before he's finished asking the question. "Clarke and I already - "

"Oh," Clarke says abruptly. 

" - have plans," Raven continues. "Maybe tomorrow - " 

"Oh, Raven, I actually just remembered," Clarke interrupts, and to his horror she's stiffening up and retreating right in front of them, now unbearably awkward even in the way she holds herself. "Madi wanted me to meet one of her friends for dinner, so. Maybe we'll see you there." 

Raven reaches for Clarke's wrist, and Clarke full-body cringes at the touch before she pulls away, Raven's fingers snagging on a wire before Clarke tugs back further. 

"Later," she promises, her smile forced, and turns back in the opposite direction, away from the old church-turned-mess hall, disappearing before the tonal shift even registers. 

Raven stands where she is for a few seconds, evidently as surprised as he is, and then deliberately elbows him as she stalks past him. 

"'Do you want to sit in on our standing dinner plans, Clarke?'" she mimics, pitching her voice lower and with grating bluster. "'Because we usually eat with the people we spent the last six years with, but we can squeeze in a - '"

"You know that's not what I meant," Bellamy says, exasperated, as he begins to speed-walk right behind her. 

"What do you think she _heard_?" she snaps, looking more irritated than he's seen her in a while. "I finally convinced her to spend time with me and now she'll think she was an afterthought." 

Bellamy frowns. "She'd have a permanent invite if I ever saw her at mess."

"She doesn't eat at mess, especially not for dinner." Raven never outwardly reacts when she's upset or emotional, only ices over, and right now her face is tellingly blank - there's more to this than he'd realised. "I sat through all three services every night for five nights, and I never saw her come in." 

He's noticed she doesn't spend much time with the others, of course he has - but he's liked his walks with Clarke so much, and believed so much in the power of those alone in easing her way, that he's never considered any other part of it, any other person. Shame slithers down his back. "So - "

" _So_ we won't see her tonight," Raven says sharply. "And _so_ I'm going to get two trays and meet her at her cabin." 

She stops and turns on her heel, and he stumbles to the side to keep from running into her. 

"Do _not_ follow me," she says. "You can talk to her tomorrow." 

He sighs loudly as he gives up and halts, hoping she can hear how annoyed she's made him right back - hoping she can't tell he's annoyed at himself, too, for making the mistake at all, for not noticing - but says her name before she gets too far. 

She turns back around, expectant. 

"I'm sure she wouldn't need 'convincing' if you tell her you're jealous of me," he says, trying for a smirk, knowing what he's saying is truer than Raven would ever admit, even to him. Raven loves Clarke, the burn of their shared losses having only soldered her heart to Clarke's in the long run; and it's rankled at her for years that she thinks no one would believe it if she said it out loud - not even Clarke. 

Raven bites the side of her mouth, the way she does when she's determined not to react. "If you get evenings with her, I should get a few mornings." 

"I think she'd like that," he agrees with a chuckle, suddenly struck by the absurdity of them bartering for their friend's time - a friend they've known for a fraction of the time they've known each other. "Good luck convincing Lalita to let you take trays out of mess." 

"That's the easy part," she huffs, ducking her head, her hand on her hip. She takes a deep breath. "I just want to talk to her." 

"She'd like that," Bellamy repeats. 

Raven nods, spins back around, and leaves.


	4. o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very glad I started posting this before this week's episode aired!!!! Reminder that all of this is informed by canon relationship dynamics, especially up to about 5x07, but not at all by canon plot (thank goodness, I could never). 
> 
> This one's a bit shorter and kind of a thought-y interlude, to make up for a pretty dialogue-heavy chapter tomorrow, which will also be the longest chapter yet.

Once, years ago - a month after the dropship fell - Clarke had cut herself on her arm by accident. She let Harper clean the wound, let Monty try the latest herb salve he'd concocted, let Jasper take over the patchwork she'd been doing. When they asked, she told them she was fine, but her laughing eyes met Bellamy's across the tent - they both knew she'd have to find something else to do, and she'd have to keep working, regardless. 

Today, when she cuts her calf against a badly shelved axe, she's stitched it up herself by the time Madi brings Jackson over, and she keeps her head down as she moves to the next thing. No questions asked or answered, not even seeking commiseration - though she must feel his gaze. He doesn't go to the gate that evening; he knows she won't be there. 

Sometimes it feels like she's the one who'd been buried; and when he's watching from afar, he feels like they left her under. She's not distant, but parts of her are unreachable, like she's wrapped them under years of platitudes and parental priorities, of playing things down and not expecting reaction. She's comfortable with taking charge, confident and capable as always, but jumps when she's spoken to - still, months after they brokered peace. She's good at her work, but is surprised when someone's hands join her own. Her framing of the world has changed - with less people, and even less regard for herself. 

Who does she talk to in town, if not Madi or Raven? Who would she say she spends time with? He doesn't think she's lonely, but maybe that's only because she's trained herself out of feeling it. 

On the rare occasions that he'd dare to dream of her survival, his imagination had always slotted in these growing pains. He knew she'd be careful and restrained, that she'd keep her distance - not deliberately, but because she's forgotten how to be otherwise. 

But he'd also always imagined him being the exception to it - that she'd be comfortable with his presence, his voice, his touch. Sometimes he thinks she is - their walks feel just right, casual like they never had the chance to be before. Mostly he thinks she's not all the way there - when she withdraws every night, even before they get back to the gate, like she needs to refuel. 

If her framing of the world has changed, so has his: six years apart, five months together, and he knows he loves her, and there's no one else for him, no matter how much he tries. If she's no longer part of her own world view, she's part of his: she's the centre of it. There's no time too long to wait for her to come back to him, for her to sidle up to him everyday in mess the way she did that first night, for her to allow him to show off his newfound skills at medical sutures. 

For her to reach out and touch him first, and let him touch her in response. 

He'll tell her when she thinks she's ready.


	5. o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the idea of there being tension and resentment and exhaustion, and neither of them knowing how to deal with it - especially because they know they can't blame or get angry at the other. This isn't a resolution at all, but I wanted to wrestle with them feeling out a problem now, with their age and history, without anger or ugliness. Stilted communication, but communication nonetheless.

One nice thing about working without death hanging over them is there's a little more freedom to choose. When the weather starts to cool, Bellamy notices there's more people willing to join the construction teams, and he goes to work in the kitchens. 

The kitchen staff mostly consists of Eligius workers, which is a change of pace, and criminality aside they're generally good company, raucous and less familiar with death. The further you move down in the ship's hierarchy, the more willing you are to find friendlies, people who hadn't been engaged in fighting over the valley to begin with. 

His favourite people are the girls working on new recipes with their limited crop variety. Trang and Angie remind him of Jasper and Monty from years ago, a version of them he can barely believe existed these days. They're fun to listen to, and though he's on ingredient prep, they like giving him taste tests, especially after he'd told them he'd been living on algae. 

He's been there for a week before Clarke comes up, and it isn't even because of him. 

"Oh hey, I saw Clarke at my place this morning," Trang says, and when his head jerks up she isn't looking at him, but at Angie. 

"Did you ask her why she hasn't been here all week?" Angie asks, pulling a tray of sliced carrots out of their brick oven. 

"Did I ask? Yes," Trang says, rolling her eyes. "But do you think she answered?" 

"She can do whatever the hell she wants," Angie says, and Bellamy stifles a laugh, too distracted now to keep peeling potatoes. "But if she doesn't eat at mess, and doesn't come back here, then - "

"I know! But I think she's got an in with the pantry guys," Trang says. "And you know she can cook. Sugar?"

Angie leans over and noisily kisses Trang, who laughs, "Not _that_ sugar." 

"You guys know Clarke?" Bellamy asks, knowing he needs to ask before they start getting gross. 

"Clarke's the shit," Angie says. "Did you know she lived out here on her own for six years before Diyoza landed? Fucking nightmare situation." 

"She comes by everyday for lunch, or used to." Trang effuses, "She has the wildest stories. No wonder her kid thinks she hung the moon." 

"Madi," Bellamy supplies.

"Yes, Madi!" Trang says, putting her finger on her nose. 

"Do you want us to introduce you two?" Angie looks him over. "I think she'd like you. You have a vibe."

"I know Clarke," Bellamy says, because there's no other word but 'know' suitable to introduce their relationship to two near-strangers. "We, uh. We worked together before." Inadequate, again. "We're friends." 

Both of them murmur acknowledgment, but he sees the way their eyebrows lift in total surprise as they exchange a look - and though he knows better not to feel it, it stings, sits on his chest. 

-

"What do you do all day?" Bellamy asks that evening, the question bursting out of him as soon as they're out of the gate. 

"I work, same as you do, dummy," she says, smiling at him. "Actually, today we figured out how to make non-shit fertiliser, so everyone can stop complaining about the ship's septic tank." 

"I mean, what do you do all day that none of us ever see you?" he clarifies. 

Clarke opens her mouth and then snaps it shut again, clearly realising the tone of the conversation he's set doesn't match hers. "I see plenty of you." 

"Raven basically had to beg for an audience with you," he says, and her mouth tightens. "But Trang and Angie haven't seen you for a couple of days and they miss you." 

"Oh, are you at the kitchens now?" It's such a plainly stilted realisation that he's suddenly certain she knew, and he's the reason she hasn't been by. 

"Have you talked to any of the 100? Anyone from the Ark?" Bellamy doesn't feel angry, just confused and weirdly out-of-step, but he knows she can still hear the bite of his frustration. "Do you run in the opposite direction when you see any of us in town, or is it just me?" 

"No, and that's not fair," she says, frustrated. "I don't see what your problem is. I'm not going anywhere, I'm not running away this time. I'm talking to you."

"Sure, every three days, about nothing," he says. 

She rolls her eyes. 

"It's mixed signals," Bellamy argues. "You tell me you want to talk to me, you tell me you used to call me on the radio, Madi somehow looks at me and immediately knows who I am, but - "

"Yes?" she says, her voice thin. 

"But I never even see you when we're not out here, and you can barely look me in the eye for longer than two seconds, and apparently your new best friends didn't even know I exist?" he says. "Do you not see you're holding me at a distance?" 

"Why do you care about who I'm having lunch with?" She laughs, but she looks frustrated when she glances over to see his glare - and looks away again, like clockwork. "It's not a clique, Bellamy. It's not fucking high school. I just like hanging out with them." 

"I'm sure the others want to talk to you, if you'd just let them - "

"And I need you to realise," Clarke says, "you and Raven do not feel the same way you think everyone else does. I'm glad I've had a positive impact on you, but you don't know the conversations I've had - "

"Whose fault is - "

"And it'd be really _nice_ ," she says, roundly cutting him off again, her voice a little louder now, "if you wouldn't pretend things haven't changed between us, like these walks are so easy for us, because I'm trying, Bellamy, but it's hard. I don't know how to do it." 

He hadn't realised they've stopped until she abruptly sits down and releases a heavy breath. 

"I'm trying not to be stupid about this," Clarke says, covering her eyes with her palms. "But figuring out what we are now - we, me and you, Bellamy - it feels daunting enough like this without...extra, external factors." 

"Daunting enough like what?" 

"Like, I don't know," she says. "Like we're playing catch up? Like we're only trying to be friends because we knew each other for like a month six years ago?"

He swallows, shuffling back a bit so he can sit down with some distance between them. "I've liked talking to you here." 

"I like talking to you, too," she says. "A lot. And I'm so happy we're on good terms, because this would be really fucking hard if I didn't think you still kind of liked me." 

Bellamy's been thinking it a lot, but he must not be saying it out loud enough - not if she still says things like 'I think you kind of like me'. 

"I like who you are now," he says. "I don't mind talking about nothing. I think you're exactly how I imagined you'd be, and I like learning about the ways you've changed." 

Her hair is getting longer, making it easier for her to keep her eyes hidden with her head down. Clockwork. 

"Clarke, this isn't hard for me. I want to spend more time with you, that's why I even...brought this up." He smiles sheepishly when she finally looks up at him. 'Brought this up', 'tried to pick a fight', those used to be the same thing with them. 

She doesn't return his smile. 

"All of you are strangers," Clarke says baldly. "I can't talk to you at home. I don't know how to sit in on conversations you've been having for six years with each other, while I've just been talking to myself." 

Bellamy opens his mouth to protest, but can't think of anything to say. 

"The most ridiculous part of this is that I feel like a child for feeling any of this," Clarke sighs, fiddling with a band on her wrist. "I have family in Madi. I'm glad all of you survived. And I can't expect everyone else to pick up where we left off. But getting to whatever new point there is is just...exhausting." 

She pulls the band off and ties her hair back in a ponytail. "I like that I don't have history with the prisoners," she explains tangentially. "I'm not trying to fit in with them, they just make space for me. None of them look like I'm a murderer or a ghost." 

"I don't look at you like you're a ghost," he says quietly.

"I think I know how you look at me, Bellamy," she says, sighing. 

He leans back on his palms. There's been no yelling, and this doesn't feel like a fight, but that's why it's strange how tired he is, realising there's been more distance between them than he'd let himself acknowledge; that the parts she's kept hidden carry unknown weight. 

Clarke stretches out her legs, looking like she's deliberately making the choice to relax. "Look, I'm working this out. And in the meantime, I'll never stop wanting to talk to you."

"Just not at home?" He stretches out his legs, too, and knocks his foot against hers. 

She shakes her head. The slant of her mouth is rueful. "I'm not trying to keep it a secret, I'm just trying to figure us out." 

"Okay," Bellamy says. "I get that now."

She looks down again. "And I'm just asking for time with the other stuff. The other people." 

"We have time," he reminds her, recalling their first conversation up here, and she huffs. "I wouldn't have pressed you on this if I'd realised, Clarke."

She nods, their eyes meeting once more, and he reminds himself of the things she's given him in the face of her exhaustion, her uncertainty. 

"I guess I would've figured this out on my own six years ago, without you having to tell me," he accepts, though acknowledging the distance between them has fast become his least favourite thing. "But I'm glad I asked. Just please keep talking to me? And I'll try not to do this again?" 

"I can do that." Clarke pushes herself off the ground. "I'm talked out today, though."

This is one of the first things he's learned about this new Clarke: her harder limits. "I can go back?" he says, hoping she won't take his offer. 

She does, but she looks so relieved he tamps down his disappointment. 

"Bellamy," she says, before he can turn around to go home. "I'll see you at lunch in two days."

He grins at her, and she returns a small smile.


	6. x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter one this time, but finally another walk!

Somehow, with peace comes the start of seasons. 

The green spreads faster than they'd expected - Madi in particular is delighted that the dirt beyond their valley is filling with colour again - but Bellamy's startled to see the green move into its cycles when he find a tree with browning leaves one morning, mere months after the seeds are planted. Like the new plants jolted the old trees out of stagnation; like the earth agrees with Clarke's new mission. 

Clarke had taken the lead on water and irrigation that first night, plotting out routes to carve tributaries from the river, so she's the one who notices when the new wells up north start to freeze. 

She tells him one evening that it'll be their first winter in six years. 

"Madi's a little mad I cut her hair yesterday," Clarke says ruefully, "but she barely stays still long enough for me to de-tangle it every morning, so it was a haircut or less friend-time." 

They're done with the upkeep, and Clarke's putting away the fertiliser the lab team made as Bellamy sits, watching her, fingers firmly in the grass. After Clarke, it was dirt he missed the most. 

"Her new haircut looks nice," he says.

She flashes a smile at him, looking indulgent. "Thanks." 

"Why would longer hair help with anything?" he asks curiously. 

"One of the other kids told her that mammal fur helps in cold places, so she just wants to be as hairy as possible." 

The grounder kids make things up as often as they tell the truth - Madi likes verifying everything she hears with everyone she encounters in camp - but this one sounds a little more like one of their legitimate facts. "I kind of get it," he says. "But now I feel like I shouldn't have shaved my beard last week?" 

Clarke snorts, the most inelegant sound he's ever heard from her.

"What!" he laughs, surprised. 

She makes a face at him. "How much do you think _your_ beard was preserving heat?" 

He mock-frowns, rubbing at his now-smooth jaw, and tries not to read into her gaze as it drops, and as she watches the movement of his hand. "There was much more there than it looked like there was," he jokes. "Six years of delicate upkeep." 

She looks up from his jaw to meet his eyes, shaking her head as she smiles. She knows he knows she'd been looking; she looks completely unaffected. She doesn't look away. "Right."

He gets up, ready to leave, as she walks over to him. Before he can say anything, though, she walks right into his space, and she runs her hand lightly over where his beard used to be. 

"I didn't mind the beard, but I like this better," she says firmly, her eyes sparkling as his mouth drops open a little in surprise. 

The only thing that gives her uncertainty away is the slight tremble to her hand, just for a second, as she jolts away and then presses it back against his skin. 

'What are you afraid of?' he almost asks. 

"Is that your fact for today?" he says out loud.

"I think you figured that part out." Clarke licks her bottom lip a little. "My fact for today is, now you look like how I used to draw you." 

"Oh."

"But better," she says again, definitively. 

He's so close to putting his hand on top of hers; but he's learning to be careful about this. 

"I like who you are now, too," she adds, calling back to their conversation just last week. 

She's been by the kitchen thrice since then, and she hasn't been looking away. 

She abruptly pats his arm and turns away, beginning to trudge down. "You're taking the pack back today, old man."


	7. o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A walk without Clarke. 
> 
> I mention Octavia off-hand here, but that's the most I'll ever say about her, because I have no idea how to consider her in the context of this future. I'm sorry! We're better off this way!

Madi's the one waiting for Bellamy at the gate today, and raises her hands before he can ask her anything. 

"Clarke is fine," she says. "They're having trouble with the nightblood procedure on one of the Eligians." 

Bellamy frowns. He'd had his own injection four days ago, a catch-all against whatever radiation is left on the planet, and had been out of it enough that he'd missed their evening walk the next day, which has left him feeling a little out of sorts. "Is she - " 

"She said you can check in on her before you leave, but it's a waste of time," she interrupts again. 

He glances in the direction of the medical cabin, then up at the sky. Daytime has been getting shorter lately, and now he wants to skip the hike up altogether, but the farming team's been worried about the increasing winds. "We can check on her later?"

Madi's face brightens, and she nods eagerly. "Do you want company?"

Bellamy smiles at her, surprised and pleased. "You wanna come with?" he asks, unlatching the gate. 

"Duh," she says, and skips out ahead of him. She's picked up on the ship people's way of speaking faster than anyone else on the ground, which has made listening to her sudden slips into an old twang incredibly funny. "I've spent _way_ too much time with kids lately, I need to talk to some old people." 

"I'm only a couple years older than your mom, you brat," he reminds her, amused. "Did she rope you in on her old man jokes?" 

"I got there on my own," she assures him, then flashes her teeth at him. "But she makes fun of you a lot."

"You don't have to tell me," he says with a laugh. "At least she's consistent."

"She didn't do it so much when you were up there," she elaborates, "but now that you're back she's remembered you're just a nerd." 

"I notice you don't disagree," he says, narrowing his eyes at her. 

She shrugs dramatically. 

Shaking his head, and still unable to suppress his smile, Bellamy asks the question he asks Clarke every evening. "How was your day?" 

"Is that what you talk about?" Madi wrinkles her nose. "She doesn't talk about the two thousand days we spent down here?" 

"We talk about a lot, that's just how we start," he defends. "And she's told me loads about you. She loves you."

"I know _that_ ," she says, rolling her eyes, but she's grinning, privately proud, when he glance over at her. "I'm just checking. She wants you to know some things before, you know." 

"Before what?" 

The look she shoots him is devastatingly knowing, and very like her mother. 

Bellamy thinks about the way Clarke has been reaching for his hand more often, the way she's been letting him see the heat in her eyes; the way she looked at him when she caught him staring at her exposed neck and clavicle under a too-baggy T-shirt - and he coughs, and makes a big show out of avoiding a pile of fallen leaves. 

"How was your day?" he repeats, after he's rustled around long enough. 

"Echo tried - " She stops, and glances at him. 

He coughs again. "You can talk about _my friend Echo_ around me, Madi."

"Well, Echo tried to teach the kids an Azgedan game today," Madi says, taking him at his word. "She's really into 'keeping the culture alive'." 

"She grew up in a society that was pretty big on that," he says. 

"I think a lot of that stuff is really messed up," Madi says, pursing her lips. "I mean. I guess it's 'cause I've seen how bad it can get." 

"I never liked it, either, but I think she's worried about losing her past," he says, remembering how much Octavia liked being respected enough to have considered conversation. "It's like how some of the older Ark people want to celebrate Unity Day next month. Or how Gaia and you hang out every week to talk about this stuff." 

"I get that," Madi says. "Some of it's cool. I don't know if the game works without ice or snow, though."

He laughs again. "That does sound like an oversight on Echo's part." 

"We played field hockey instead," she says. Off his confused look, she claps her hands. "Oh! The prisoners taught us this game last week!" 

Madi's recount of the rules of the game and the match they played this afternoon is enthusiastic and genuinely engrossing; so much so that he doesn't realise where they are until they're in hearing distance of the river. 

"Hey, are we going the right way?" he asks, stopping in his tracks. "We've never gone by the river." 

"We're five minutes from the peak right now," Madi frowns. "How do you guys usually go?" 

"Uh, across that clearing beyond the first slope." He starts walking again when Madi waves him over. "This took much less time than I expected it to."

"The clearing adds an easy twenty minutes each way," Madi says off-handedly, distracted by something high up on a tree. "Does that look like mint to you?" 

He blinks at her, nonplussed. 

"Because _nomon_ taught me mint grows on the ground, but the leaves look - " She glances over at him and sighs when she realises she doesn't have his attention, and moves to the base of the tree. 

"Gaia was right, men are useless," she grumbles, yanking herself up with her hold on the lowest branch. 

Twenty more minutes each way, he thinks, and wonders if the knowledge of her want for him will ever stop leaving him winded. 

"It's definitely mint!" Madi calls down. 

"You'd better not be eating that!" Bellamy yells, shaken out of his daze when he realises he can no longer see her, and he jogs closer to the trunk. 

"I know, I know," she says, put-upon in the specific way that only kids can be. "It smells like mint! But I'll just pluck a little first." 

She tosses a few sprigs down, the last of which he manages to catch. 

"Clarke is gonna love us for this," she says, easily jumping her way back down. He grabs her shoulders when she lands and almost tilts over. 

"I can come by with her tomorrow," he offers, picking up the ones that fell to the ground. "To get the rest."

"Very generous," she says. 

She doesn't follow up on what he knows was sarcasm, so she must not be able to see the heat on his cheeks. He's disproportionately relieved. 

"Come on," she says instead, beginning to walk again. "The faster we get up there, the sooner we can go see her." 

It's great incentive; he takes three easy strides to catch up with her, and asks what else they've been teaching the kids. 

Her eager babble sounds sweet against the rush of the river beside them.


	8. x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is The Chapter for me: I started writing this story as a one-shot set over one night, and that story is this. It's also kind of the culmination of two threads I've got running through the rest of this - the overt one being talking and communication, and the underlying one on Clarke and touch, the latter of which I hope you'll find breadcrumbs for if you ever go back and reread this fic as a whole. 
> 
> Thank you for your comments and your time. One chapter to go!

The weather falls from chilly to freezing literally overnight. 

Bellamy steps out one morning and his breath fogs up the air in front of him. Three cabins down, Clarke's rubbing her palms together as she meets his eyes. 

They share a smile for just four seconds before Madi nudges her out of their doorway and pushes her towards the mess. Clarke shrugs, still smiling, and turns away obligingly. It must be a Raven breakfast day. 

He'll see her in the evening, he thinks, they're due for a check-in; and goes off in the opposite direction to meet Monty at his and Harper's place so they can eat together. 

-

Later that day, Clarke enters mess during the first round of dinner service with her mother. 

Bellamy notices her immediately, struck by what a rare sight it is to see her in the old church, but he doesn't think she sees him sitting across the room, halfway through his own dinner with Raven and Emori. She's wearing a sweatshirt that's a couple of sizes too big - mirroring the one he's wearing, taken from the clothing in Eligius storage. 

(She does notice him, a good fifteen minutes later - when she catches his eye, he grins and points at his own shirt, mouthing 'we match!'. She laughs, but he wishes he was close enough to see if it reaches her eyes.) 

He takes his time leaving after dinner, happy to dawdle in the old building's banked heat. When he does step back out, the evening cold takes him by surprise, and he stops in his tracks. It's his fault when the next person who exits runs right into his back. 

"Fucking - " Clarke yelps, hands reaching out for balance. " - Bellamy," she finishes with surprise, dragging her feet before she falls into him. "Hey."

"Hey," Bellamy says, and his hands grasp hers automatically. "You okay?"

Clarke smiles as she tugs her hands back, but she's clearly caught off-guard - her smile doesn't land, and she's a little stiff as she lowers her arms. "Cold," she says. 

"Cold," he repeats agreeably, and points at the gate, where he'd been going to meet her anyway. "Shall we?" 

She shrugs, but starts walking, and he follows. Then she stops and sighs. 

"Can we take a rain check?" she asks; she's picked up Eligius phrases as fast as her daughter has (laughed herself silly explaining internet speak to Raven and Bellamy one night, which the prisoners seem to think is their greatest loss). "I have an errand to run. How about I drop you off at yours first?" 

"It's not my bedtime yet," Bellamy jokes, feeling silly before the sentence is out of his mouth. "Where are you going?"

She looks at him consideringly. Her hand twitches up and presses against her left side, and he wonders if she knows she's doing it. 

"Clarke," he says, and asks her again, "Are you okay?" 

Clarke bites her bottom lip and blinks, looking past him to one of the only huts that has lanterns on the outside, lit up at night. "I was just going to the medical cabin to get something," she says. "Lucas has some salve I wanted to try." 

"I'll come with," Bellamy says immediately. 

"Okay." She smiles back, the strain on her face lessening a little. "So Monty's been taking me to the prison ship library." 

Their conversation about the bizarrely compelling young adult selection carries them through the next twenty minutes - to medical, where the grounder medic hands her a clay jar of green ointment; past Gaia's, where Madi's spending the night, as she does once a week; and then to hers. 

When they reach her door, she barely hesitates. "Do you wanna come in?" 

He follows her in with an ease he wouldn't have expected of himself even an hour ago. "Dumbledore was a dick," he says.

"I think he was gay," Clarke says as she lights the lantern hanging from the ceiling. "So he was kind of a tragic dick." 

"Did they say he was in love with his bad guy?" Bellamy takes the lighter from her to light the candle on her desk, and hands it back to her as he takes a look around. 

The bones of her (and Madi's) place match his, as they match everyone else's - the bed, the overhead lantern, the table, two chairs, two boxes of clothes - but there's an extra bedroll rolled into a corner, and other things she must have accumulated over the last six years: a teapot and three mugs, a few pots, a metal bin that he recognises as something of a portable fireplace. 

By the time he looks up, Clarke's sitting on the bed, her socked feet curled under her and her shoes pushed under the frame, and she's watching him. 

"No, but I have a radar for tragedy," she says, her smile dry and knowing. Her history looks good on her from here, these days - still a part of her, but wrestled into something she can carry. 

"And for tragic dicks?" he says, smiling back. 

"That's a '100' specialty," she says, with a mock salute. She waves at the two other chairs. "Sit wherever you want." 

He sits on the chair further from the bed, closer to the fire. "The books don't say it," he says, "but I'll defer to you." 

Clarke looks satisfied and suspicious at the same time, the way she always does when he concedes anything to her. The expression is so familiar, even on her older, sharper face, that it's all he can do not to laugh, the joy of it bubbling up in him. 

She takes some of the salve with two fingers, and slips her hand under her sweatshirt, where he can see her massaging at her left side - where he'd seen her rest her hand outside twenty minutes ago. "I found another series - " she starts. 

"What's that for?" he interrupts, nodding up at her. 

"It - uh, it's just for the cold," she fumbles, glancing at her side. "I've been hurting a bit."

"Do you want to do something else tomorrow?" he asks, immediately concerned. "I know you're all almost done with the shower heaters." 

"I'm all right in the day," she says, waving him off before she reaches for more. "It's just too cold at night. Old injuries don't like the cold."

Bellamy reconsiders the various aches he's catalogued these last two nights, especially the way his shoulder's been hurting - the one he dislocated on the ark and got Murphy, in all his tough-love medical inexpertise, to reset. 

Clarke's offering him the jar with her dry hand before he even asks. "It helps with scars, too," she says, gesturing at her own face to indicate the one on his. 

He gets up to join her on her bed, taking the jar to rest it between them. 

"Tell me a battle wound story," he says, reaching for the ointment. 

She smiles, and he thinks she might be reaching for the bottom of her shirt before she pulls up a pantleg instead. "Grounder trap," she says, pointing at the faded toothy lines at the base of her shin. "Madi."

Bellamy lifts his right shoulder, slipping his hand under his sweatshirt to reach it with the salve. "Bad estimate of the weight of a box on the top shelf," he returns. "I dislocated my shoulder." The salve heats up the more he rubs it in - unexpected, but pleasant - and pain that he hadn't realised he'd gotten used to, eases. 

She pushes up her right sleeve. "Fell on a rock running from a pig, fractured my arm." She grins at him proudly. "But we ate well that night." 

They cover an old stabbing wound (his), a torn-and-healed ligament (hers), a recurring ankle sprain (his), and matching scars on both of their right knees from repeated falls, before she reaches behind her. 

"Sandstorm," she says, twisting her arm funny to flatten her hand against her back. 

"Can you reach it?" he asks, moving to help her before he's done asking. 

"I think," she begins, then stops, frowning at him. He can tell she's made a decision by the way the set of her jaw shifts into something stubborn; she shuffles around on her knees, pulling off her sweatshirt as she turns. 

He doesn't know what he's supposed to be looking at until she pulls her hair over her shoulder, and he can see her upper back. 

The scars are thin and look healed, but the images they conjure hit him in the gut. 

"Breathe, Bellamy," Clarke says, reaching behind her to squeeze his knee. He inhales. 

He shifts closer to her, nearly knocking down the jar between them, and moves to trace it. He stops. "Can I touch it?" 

Six years ago, she would've said, 'Yes, idiot, that's why I took my top off.' Now she sighs, and says, "Yes. Thank you for asking." 

He doesn't bother with the salve yet, and the hand he places on her back is dry. It feels smoother than it looks; and is mainly on her upper back, climbing from below her neck to under the jersey-type bra she must have taken off the ship; spreading like cracked earth. 

Clarke hisses a little as he shifts his hand up, his thumb grazing the base of her neck. 

"Cold?" he asks.

"No," Clarke says roughly, and clears her throat. "You run a little hot." 

Bellamy knows she's lying through her teeth, has known since she yanked her hand away from Raven's weeks ago, but she'll tell him when she wants to. 

"I never radioed you about these," she confesses. "Kind of a low point."

"And the one on your hip?" he asks, his mouth dry. 

"Those are different," she says. "They match the ones here. Praimfaya." She lifts her arm and pats at the side of her ribcage. 

These scars could pass for stretch marks if it weren't for their shape; twisting, cutting inward instead of raising up. He'd be surprised if anyone outside of Madi has seen any of it - hidden as it is on her hips, under her upper arms - but he's still jarred by how much of her he's missed, how inadequate their evening walks have been. 

"The suit was resistant to radiation," she says. "My clothes weren't." 

He releases a slow breath. 

"That fucking sucks," he says, knowing she can hear the crack in his voice anyway. 

She huffs out a laugh. "It fucking sucked." 

"I'm getting the salve," he announces, reaching for the jar now. "And I'm going to touch you again."

"Okay." She smiles at him self-consciously over her shoulder. "Figured that out, huh?" 

He raises his eyebrows at her, watching as her eyes close the second his hand returns to her back.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, light enough that he knows she'll know he does know what she's talking about. "Unless you have something to tell me?"

She huffs and twists her body to the front again. "Shut up," she says, knocking at his knee with an elbow jab behind her. 

"Because you if you have something to tell me - " he needles. 

"If you can figure out a less pathetic way to say 'I've gotten really bad at letting people touch me'," she says wryly, "let me know and we'll talk."

"I think that about covers it," he says, wishing he could give her a little comfort, knowing he's better with his touch than with his words when feelings - his feelings for and surrounding her - are at play. He reaches around her for her hand, on her lap, with his dry hand and squeezes lightly. 

She interlaces his fingers with hers. 

"You know, if this was a story," Bellamy says, shifting his other hand - still on her back - downwards, slow enough that she can track the movement. "The unhealed scars would be a metaphor."

"A metaphor," Clarke repeats. 

It's no wonder her hip's been bothering her, he thinks; the scarring there is particularly gnarled, and the ointment she'd put on at the start of their conversation has already dried in instead of leaving damp residue. 

"Unresolved backstory, tensions," he says, getting more of the salve. 

"Like they'd disappear if I resolved it?" she says sceptically. "You've been reading too much." 

"Mmmm." He curves his hand around her side, and for the first time in months, she doesn't jump - she leans into it and hums, the roughness of her voice sending a shiver through him. He rubs the salve in, but leaves his hand there, newly preoccupied by the way his skin looks against hers. The way his thumb, with his palm on her waist, can reach the centre of her back. 

"Do you have a fact for me?" she asks, when the silence sits a little too long. She squeezes his hand, still in her lap. 

"I've never seen this much of your skin before," he says, caught off-guard and totally unfiltered, knowing as soon as he says it that he sounds a little like he's been knocked in the head. 

She laughs, letting her head fall forward, as if strings holding her up have been cut. "Stupid." 

When he's done, she doesn't put her top back on; instead, she turns around and immediately slings her arms around his waist, eyes closed like she's calling on herself to not waver. 

He won't let her doubt herself - he tugs her in as close as he can get her. His hands push up her sides and span her back (muscle memory, skin he remembers), before he explores - her waist, her ribs, the base of her spine, her elbow (skin he wants to learn). Her skin's a little damp where they've already rubbed in the salve, but he knows that's not where the dampness at his collar is coming from. 

"Are you okay?" he asks one more time. He smooths his hand up the small of her back, where he barely feels the scars he now knows are there, and up to the spot where her neck curves. 

She nods, but her arms around him tighten, and he tightens his grip right back. 

"I'm getting better," she says, her voice uneven. "You help. How are you?"

"I've been great," he says, and adds what he's thinking, for once; "I'm so happy you're here." He presses his mouth against her temple, and she shudders, just once, before kissing his shoulder in return. 

It's not the first time they've ever hugged, but it's the first time it feels like they've got all the time in the world to do it. They stay wrapped in each other a little longer, shifting so they're more comfortable - her cheek on his chest and one of his legs stretched out - and talk just like this: about his day, about her mom, about the other book she's been reading, about his new friend from the ship.

When Clarke finally moves to pull back, he lets her ease away from him, and she stays close, warmth trapped between them. 

"Do we need to pick up Madi from Gaia's?" he asks, giving her an out if she needs it. He keeps a hand on her back, slides the other to her knee, rubs at the scar he now knows they share. He's happy to prolong his touch now that she's letting him have it. 

"She's there all night," Clarke says, and she's smiling at him even as she swipes at her cheeks. This smile definitely reaches her eyes. "Stay?"


	9. x

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> XX **O**  
>  O **O** X  
>  **O** XX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Thank you again for reading, and for letting me be wildly indulgent with a romantic, 'take these plot details at my word, thx' fic set in gloom & doom & highly-specific-plot-details-y canon.

When Bellamy heads to the backroom of the mess - a shoddy add-on they'd patched to the back of the good concrete building - Clarke's elbow-deep in suds, looking a little grumpy. 

"Hiya, Clarke," Bellamy says, smiling as her gaze lifts to look at him. "Miller told me I'd find you here."

"I lost at poker," she says. She's adorably close to pouting. "Angie was definitely cheating." 

"Most of us here are criminals," he reminds her. He hangs up the jacket he's taken to wearing, and nudges past her to get the dish cloth on the hook by the basin. "You could definitely cheat back with a little more work." 

"You're right." She lights up immediately at the thought. "Next time." 

"Delinquent," he teases. 

When he glances over at her to check if the crack landed, she's already looking at him, and to his delight her cheeks are turning pink. 

She turns away and scrubs hard at the glass she has in her hands. 

"What?" he says, sidling closer. Their arms brush against each other's as he begins to dry the plates she's left on the counter. 

"I haven't seen you all day today," Clarke says. She's still flushed, but her quick glance at him is sly. "Did you see me and run in the opposite direction?" 

"Ha," he says drily. "I was out on an emergency run for sand today while you were busy gambling your free time away." 

"It was one game!" she exclaims, thrusting a plate into his stomach. 

"And I think," he says, lowering his voice, "that you saw me this morning."

"You're right, I did," she says, sounding thoughtful. "You woke me up when you were leaving, and I thought you were going to kiss me."

"Uh," he says, floored for just a second at her directness - and then he instinctively argues back, the way he would have seven years ago. "I thought _you_ were going to kiss _me_." 

"I'm the one that brought you back to my place, so it was your move." She shrugs dramatically. 

"I mean, I've been coming over every night that Madi's out. If anything was going to change, it'd have to be because of you."

"I mean," she mimics. "I told you to sleep up on the bed with me instead of on the extra mattress, which was pretty forward of me." 

"You said you were cold!" 

"It was forward hinting," she corrects. 

"I asked you if you wanted to come to the movie screening with me next week," he points out. "I was asking you out." 

"Then I've been asking you out for months," Clarke says, and though her grin is wide and silly, something in her eyes tells him she's only partly joking. 

Bellamy laughs, ready to concede to her, when she ups the ante: she reaches around his back, unnecessarily (and unnecessarily slowly), to grab the dish soap. 

He leans in before she can draw back all the way, keeping their bodies close, and presses his lips to her cheek. 

"I did this a lot last night," he says lowly. " _That_ was hinting." He lifts a hand to the side of her neck and slides it up behind her ear. 

Her breath hitches, and she moves her hands up, and growls when she realises she can't really go further. "No fair," she protests. "My hands are dirty." 

"How much do you have left?" he asks, his nose tracing down the side of her face, emboldened by her closed eyes and hazy, growing smile. Her skin is warm and soft; she smells like mint. He knows this from their last few weeks together, waking up in the same cabin, if not always in the same bed. 

He knows that she wants this, too, from their last few weeks together; and from this morning, when she'd beamed at him as she realised who she was waking up next to, when she'd pulled him closer. 

If he'd kissed her, he wouldn't have left.

"Um." She turns her head to check the stacks behind her. Her knees buckle at the first touch of his mouth against her neck, and he slides his free arm around her waist to help keep her up. "It'll take ten minutes. Twenty if you keep doing that," she adds, trying to be pointed, failing utterly. 

He pulls back from her reluctantly, but he stays close, a hand still behind her ear, the other arm around her back. "Noted." 

She doesn't get back to work yet, though she must be as impatient as he is. She nudges at his nose with hers, slowly moves to kiss his cheek and kiss his jaw; then rocks back onto her feet from her toes. 

"I guess I should have kissed you," Clarke muses, her eyes darting around his face. "You were looking at me just like this this morning."

"I've looked at you like this for forever," he says. 

"Even better," she says casually, though her cheeks are reddening again. She leans back against his arm, and tilts her head so she can kiss the palm he has against her neck.

"Hey," he says. 

"Hi." 

"I like your braid." He hasn't seen it like this in years. He brushes her hair back from her forehead, and lets his hand follow her hair down her back; locks both his hands together as they meet behind her back and tugs her even closer. 

She rests her forearms on his chest, careful to keep her hands up off his T-shirt. "You'll help me dry the dishes?"

" _Duh_ ," he says, in his best Madi voice.

"And walk me home?" Her smile is bright. 

"I think we've established you owe me a kiss." He grins back, knowing she can see how giddy he feels. "And I need someone to help me get back in the dark."


End file.
